There have been rumours recently about the financial situation of the KDE League, as well as criticism of its apparent inactivity. With KDE e.V., the KDE developers' organisational body which controls the KDE League, being recently resurrected, we will now be able to blow new life into the KDE League. [Ed: Matthias Kalle Dalheimer was recently elected a KDE e.V. board member and the KDE e.V. President.]

There has recently been gossip about the working and financial situation of
the KDE League. "News" sites with questionable reputation have run stories
about financial irregularities in the KDE League that entirely lack in
foundation. This journalistically irresponsible behavior is endangering the
reputation of both the KDE League as well as KDE e.V. and the KDE project as
a whole.

The Board of KDE e.V. has at this point and with the current knowledge
absolutely no reason to believe that there are any irregularities in the
bookkeeping of the KDE League. The Board of KDE e.V. does not believe it is
productive to disclose the books of the KDE League to the general public, but
is of course willing to authorize the KDE League to disclose the books to
elected KDE e.V. members (see below).

The Board of KDE e.V. acknowledges that the KDE League has been mostly
dysfunctional the last few months. This is partly due to lack of enthusiasm
on the part of the KDE League members, partly due to KDE e.V. having been
dysfunctional itself (since KDE e.V. has a huge influence in the KDE League,
it can, willingly or non-willingly, block the work of the KDE League).

The members of KDE e.V. are currently determining who will represent them on the Board of the KDE League so that a budget for the KDE League can be passed and the KDE League can take up its work again.

Comments

The books are disclosed to all KDE e.V members if I understand what Kalle is saying. If you are a KDE contributer you can apply for membership. As far as I'm concerned, this is all well and good, and nobody else's business.

Yes it could. For one thing, suppose I am a contributor, I might just not want to parade my charitable work around. There are a few people like this. Beyond that I could be a company who does not wish it to be publicly exposed that I contributed because maybe I don't want M$ or other M$ oriented companies to see it and cancel my contracts. For that matter, maybe it could create tension with a contributor's GNOME support. Who knows? Certainly I would be really ticked off and unlikely to pay up if it was posted that I was $10,000 in arrears.

These are just a few reasons that don't take much thought. Don't you think they would have registered IRS 501 (c)(3) if they wanted to go that route? Possibly the people who put together the league gave it more thought than you have?

Another thing that is irritating is people asking why it hasn't done more? True it would be more obvious if you looked at the books but huge numbers for the average household are pathetic for the average corporation. It reminds me of the old saying "We've done so much with so little for so long we can now do anything with nothing forever". Of course that is tongue in cheek. The only relevent question is have they been operating to the best of their ability under their charter. I think this is being answered. As far as finances go, I often wonder how many people can even put finances like this in perspective instead of just looking at a number and relating it to their finances. That can certainly lead to wild specualtion and irrational expectations as to what could be done with a given sum. Again it's all second guessing and diverting from acomplishing the tasks at hand.

How much difference does a balance sheet and the persuant arguments make in relation to whether honest and intelligent people are making their best effort to support what they are passionate about? If you want to see the books wave a check for $10,000 in front of them and ask to see. I'm going to assume that core developers and major contributors have more rights in their company than an observer. What exactly is wrong with that?

Why is that people who haven't given any money to the KDE League want to know all about it's books? Just because KDE is open source doesn't mean they have to report their finances to the planet. Would you ask SuSE or Ximian to disclose their finances? They are not public firms...they answer to those who have put money up. If you haven't then I would suggest minding your business.

Perhaps not legally (TBD), but certainly from
a community standpoint. Take the longstanding
problem of not having enough developers and speakers
at Linux conferences. What, if anything, has the
KDE League done to help?

> But all people tell me is, "there is no money for making
> flyers for linux expos, there no money for this, there is no money for that".
> What happens to the money. I thought (maybe this was stupid) that KDE League
> exists in order to provide promotion and promotion material.

The KDE League has a quite small budget. Promotion is very expensive.
We have had to make some hard decisions about what to try to get into
the budget, and many things that are important will not get funded.
From the outset the most important thing was getting media coverage for
KDE, as generally this is the cheapest and most effective promotional
method, and you can expect this to be the focus of the KDE League.

> Why don't KDE have professional posters and flyers (instead of these
> home-made not very-colorful 300dpi ink jet prints). Why don't we have CDs to
> sell? Where are the KDE t-shirts to sell? What about the marketing?

Regarding posters and flyers, the way it looks (we will know more in the
next few weeks when the budget meeting ends) the League will have a
budget item to support things like this. However the infrastructure to
support this -- from information on the website to perhaps a form people
can use to submit requests -- is not yet in place, and, as I mentioned
earlier, volunteers to help implement this are welcome.

[...]
> So, what happened already in the 6 months KDE League exists?

Organizational things to a large degree; as well as fund-raising.
Unfortunately we have been hampered by a series of things that have to
go in a certain order and each piece takes some time. Inside the next
month you really should see a lot more activity from the League.

you quote my answers from more than one year ago... since then I was involved in the organisation of several events and expos where KDE had a booth.
Today we have already the second version of very nice high-quality flyers, made with the help of the League and paid by the League. We have T-Shirts (we already had then, but I didn't know), posters, pins and some other stuff. We also have more ideas in our pipe, but time is lacking and the League must become functional again first.

SuSe and Ximian are _for profit_ and are not related to KDE in any way. Oh, by the way, money is not the only manner to contribute to KDE and if a league wears KDE's name I want it to be transparent and open.

I do not subscribe to the idea that the KDE League has done anything wrong (except miss a routine filing date), but I still think transparency is the answer here.

All of this is a big waist of time that could be easily solved if the league would agree to make it's financial situation more transparent and perhaps explicitly detail the ways in which the league has/will fullfill its charter.

> You have to, by law.
> One of the joys of being a non-profit organization

This would be true if the KDE League was a nonprofit. It's not.

A nonprofit has tax-exempt status with the IRS, and a lot of responsibilities come along with such a status. The KDE League (as I understand it) is a "not for profit" corporation. i.e. it does not make a profit as any excess funds are put back into the League's activites, but for tax purposes it's just another corporation.

In terms of disclosure of finances, it does not have any responsibilities above any other corporation, so it is not obligated to disclose this information, except perhaps to it's members.

If you are right the League is violating against their own bylaws in section 1.1: "The name of this non-profit corporation is the International KDE League, Inc." (http://www.kdeleague.org/bylaws.php)
Please also note that this sentence is actually the only one where the term "non-profit" is used regarding to the League's state at all...

They are not tax exempt right? There is no legal basis at all for them to be forced to open their books to hostile forces like you and Anonymous. If there is, and you know so much about law why don't you sue them and shut up?

As far as I understood the whole thing KDE e.V. is a non-profit organization while KDE League isn't. And the reason why both are separated is that KDE e.V. stays independent from profit seeking companys while any company can contribute to KDE League without having their contributions to be discloused to the public. And if they want to contribute publicly they could still contribute to KDE e.V. directly.

Seems like you could forget KDE League since it's "only" a club of supporters who don't want any publicity...?

The statement by A. Pour says that:
(1) KDE League is not a Tax Exempt ("non-profit') organization for
US Federal Tax purposes.
(2) Apparently for the purposes of Delaware State corporation law,
it is "non-profit" which apparently means it is not liable
for a late filing penalty fee for missing some annual due date.

So it is *not* required by Federal Law to disclose its accounts to
the Public.

So far, no-one has claimed that Delaware law requires puiblic disclosure.
Presumably not (?) since Delaware aims to be very
"corporation friendly" to profit from fees paid by corporations
that chose to incorporate there.

I'm a minor KDE contributor. Here's my impression of the situation, which roughly agrees with that of everyone else I've discussed this with:

* The KDE League is raising money, supposedly in the tens of thousands of dollars, by trading on KDE's name.

* The KDE League has not visibly accomplished anything besides a prominent contribution to the Microsoft settlement debate. Its web site is stagnant and Kalle admits it's done little recently. That doesn't mean it hasn't done anything but....

* ...whenever any question is raised, Andreas Pour responds by saying that it's all a secret and he can't tell us about all the good things that are being done. Or anything else.

Something has to give. Either it needs to be clear to the KDE community that the League is doing something useful, or the people in charge need to level about what's going on or they better get used to hearing complaints.

My guess is that after the Linux gold rush dried up, the League members felt they had better things to do than give Andreas piles of money, Granroth and Schlager got bored and went off to do something else and Andreas was left with a domain name and not much to do. If that's the case -- tell us! Whatever happened -- tell us!

I think we all trust Kalle and I'm glad to see he's admitting there's a problem and trying to whip things into shape. Dennis Powell is an idiot who uses computer journalism as a club to manage his grudges, but if things start to improve from here, credit him for poking the anthill.

i agree about the transparency with regard to the actions of the League. being as opaque as they are, it makes it very difficult for the community to work with, support, or even know how to feel about the League. i don't think that the League has done anything to sully the name of KDE to this point, they just haven't done as much as some may have hoped.

as for finances, the people who put $$ into the KDE League are the ones who have the right to a say in how those dollars are spent. it isn't our money, it's theirs. if they know how it is being spent and are happy with it and it isn't being used to harm KDE, then who are we to complain? until i put some of my own cash into the basket, i have no expectations with regard to the transparency of the finances of the organization.

if the League was operationally transparent it would put some added onus on the League w/regards to taking action and it would be easier to get the community to support it. this in turn would probably make it easier for the League to drum up $$ from members as they could see a direct corelation between investment and return. it would also probably quiet most (if not all) demands for financial transparency.

My concern isn't to know where every dollar came from and went. Like you said, it's not our business, and like I said, I doubt that money has been mishandled, much more likely that it never came in the first place.

What is important is that it be made clear whether the KDE League has done or is doing anything useful. Kalle acknowledges that its performance has been underwhelming and, except for one troll, I don't see anyone here with a positive impression of it. I've come away from this feud with a much clearer understanding of the Delaware bureaucracy and the disclosure regulations for non-profits and not-for-profits than I have of what the KDE League is or does.

Anyways, to elaborate a bit, the KDE e.V, while having influence (3 and 6 Board seats) in the League, is in the process of picking a person for the league.

So, instead, one would have to pay $5,000/$10,000 (CE Membership) or $1,000/$2,000 (CA Membership). I sincerily doubt that anyone cares that much to pay that much money.

I don't think it's such a big deal anyways; as long as someone from the league speaks up about what the league is exactly doing. The league might be doing wonders for the promoting of KDE; the public just wouldn't know and articles like dep's would be given credibility (what's happening now).

I agree completely with Otter. I am also a minor KDE contributor (maybe 2500 lines of code in a KDE app) and my only feelings are that anything KDE does should be completely transparent. I am sure Andreas is a good man but he has 36 thousand reasons to maintain the status quo. In related news, I thought all bitching by Tink et al about RH's Bluecurve was ridiculous. KDE as a project seems to lack confidence in it's own offering. We also need to cooperate more with gnomers.

> I thought all bitching by Tink et al about RH's Bluecurve was ridiculous.

A) it wasn't primarily about bluecurve (the theme)
B) WTF does this have to do with the League? or: why are you bringing this up yet again outside of trying to start an unecessary flame war? it's been discussed to death already. the horse is dead. stop kicking it.

> KDE as a project seems to lack confidence in it's own offering.

how do you define "KDE as a project"? do you mean those who create KDE? if so, I think there is a healthy amount of confidence in what KDE is. it isn't to the point of blind pompousness, but there deffinitely is pride and confidence among those who create KDE, in my experience.

> We also need to cooperate more with gnomers

in which regard? many technologies are shared, and many more will be. there won't be cooperation on some things due to differences in technological vision and that is to be expected. however, interop continues to move forward.

that said, i'm still waiting (as are others, some of them GNOME devs) to hear back from some key GNOME devs on HIG issues. we had started down a pathway of cooperative efforts on that topic, but it has apparently been ignored by those who would be able to give it the go ahead in the GNOME camp. perhaps they are stuck for time right now, or don't care, or missed the many emails (many from their own devs) on the topic, i don't know. this just goes to show that sometimes cooperation is attempted and it doesn't work out immediately. this doesn't mean there is a lack of interest or effort, though. just that sometimes things take time or aren't shared equally by both as important.

btw, understand that the RH thing was not about GNOME/KDE relations. so if this wasn't simply yet another random comment meant to spawn flames and was actually meant to cohere with your Tink vs. RH "observations", you're rather off-base.

>>>>>>
I agree completely with Otter.... my only feelings are that anything KDE does should be completely transparent.
<<<<<<

I'm actually not arguing for that as a general principle. If, say, core developers discuss issues and make decisions in private -- AFAIC, they've earned our trust enough to be able to do that.

If the KDE League had a track record of success, or at least outward signs of activity, I couldn't care less about how they're spending their money. But they don't have a track record that makes, "I can't tell you that!" an acceptable answer for everything.

Ahem, funny how you clamor for transparency and then lie when throwing around people's names, claiming that one particular person whom I respect deeply was "bitching" about BlueCurve. I challenge you to find documentation of that. And please don't tell me that technical and artistic criticism is unwrarranted. I'll, for instance, criticize the BlueCurve QT style for what it is - software released with plainly visible bugs and thus obviously w/o proper testing, which has caused me to loose all faith in RH Q&A

Why are KDE folks so reactionary? You've lost ALL faith in RH Q&A? I mean, come ON.

I think you'll find in the broader world few people buy this KDE garbarge vis a vis Redhat and their myrid failures. Look at the reviews and story write-ups in more mainstream venues. Many people find RedHat's Q&A'ed distro easier and more reliable to use than rolling their own, and a good number find the work RH in terms of Q&A valuable.

Just so KDE folks are very clear on this point, people such as Alan Cox are employed by RedHat, and in Alan's case a good portion of his job is to Q&A other people's patches. I find that Q&A work helpful, and have more faith in folks like Alan then I do in someone like SadEagle.

Why are we so reactionary? How long have you followed KDE? Do you understand how open source should work, and how it currently *IS* working. Redhat:

a.) Doesn't give a damn about us, and has proven it time again. Granted they lent us the machine at the Linux World Expo in CA (2002), it didn't even startup when we got it. We ended up having to call them over to fix it, that made a lot of us really nervous because that was suppose to be our main machine, and we already had people at our booth, but I'll let them off the hook on that one.

b.) Employs like 2 KDE people, compared to like a LOT more Gnome developers

c.) Pretend to ignore us, as if we're some linux-product-from-the-1990's-when-no-one-cared-about-linux.

I could go on and on, but I really shouldn't have to. People claim that a lot of the KDE people are mad at Redhat because they are successful, and they are gravely mistaken. We (KDE Developers) don't have our own companies, so why do we care if they're successful? As obsurd as some people think this claim is, Redhat will turn into the Microsoft of Linux, and it's not JUST because they are successful. Their business practices are getting worse by the minute.

Also, some people say that SuSE is just as bad since their Gnome support is just as bad as Redhat's KDE support. Hah! At least SuSE packages their Gnome right. At least they don't cripple it and remove credit's towards KDE developers. At least they don't replace Konqueror with Mozilla. KDE is an INTEGRATED desktop. All or none IMO.

We're talking about REDHAT Q&A, not the Q&A preformed by employees employed by Redhat. It wouldn't even suprize me if the OFFICIAL Q&A department didn't spend more than 5 minutes testing KDE.

> b.) Employs like 2 KDE people, compared to like a LOT more Gnome developers

The reverse is true with SuSE and GNOME, however, I don't see any SuSE-hate from the GNOME community.

> c.) Pretend to ignore us, as if we're some linux-product-from-the-1990's-when-no-one-cared-about-linux.

The reverse is true about SuSE and GNOME.

> At least they don't cripple it and remove credit's towards KDE developers.

1. How did they cripple it?
2. About boxes are still there, which has credit for developers.

> At least they don't replace Konqueror with Mozilla.

Konqueror is not just a web browser. They put Mozilla in kicker because they beleive that it can display more pages properly, which I personally agree with. They aren't doing stupid things like replacing Konqueror with Nautilus, for example. Anyways, they did the same things to Gnome.

> KDE is an INTEGRATED desktop. All or none IMO.

The key thing is "IMO"

> Their business practices are getting worse by the minute.

How so? Remember that Redhat employs a very large amount of developers that have worked on open source software (mostly non-KDE, non-GNOME related). A friend of mine was hired by RH last week, and he brought his mandrake-running laptop with him :-)

The application about boxes do *not* credit all developers.
They do not credit proofreaders,
They do not credit consistency checkers,
They do not credit developers who contributed "merely" bugfixes,
They do not credit the developers of the libraries, without which
the application simply wouldn't do much.

The About KDE box does all that. And please don't tell me about token additions of the same entry 4-levels deep in some panel preference menu.

And well, "cripple" isn't a good term, I agree. It's emotional, imprecise, and charged. I think "reduce stability of" is better.

And frankly, your claim that *many* people *hate* RedHat is rather short of substantiation. Sure, there are some, but I don't see that beyond 2 or 3 people at most. I, for one, am simply sad to see a company that has done a lot of great work decide to play a visionary of the desktop (which is great), and forget about all the grimey parts of the work. Like testing, bugfixing, freezes, responsible release schedules, etc. And heck, of course I'll not be of a very favorable opinion of them when I see other distros's packagers spend hours doing the dirty and hard work fixing small and large bugs, while all they do is introduce new ones for dubious gains. Because ultimately, it's the maintenance that's most of development.

BTW, like many people, you also assume that people don't critize other distrubitions. They sure do, just some so-called "journalists" don't make a big deal of that.

This all started with dishonest allegations that there was inpropriety going on behind the scenes of KDE League. Lie after lie have been exposed in the articles of dep, but all of a sudden people think he is a martyr and are taking the chance to attack KDE.

This is very sad. Very very sad indeed. Who knew there were so many jackals out there.

Its ironic that the KDE League has failed to present
a good public image of itself by:

- not disclosing information about its inner workings,
e.g. finances

- not publicizing any of its accomplishments

Now the latest irony - criticism of the league,
enabled by the facts above, actually does PR damage
to KDE itself.

It's an unfortunate set of circumstances,
to say the least. I hope credibility can be
re-established, both inside and outside the
community, and that the League will be able to
do more _visible_ good for the KDE project in
the future.